CAMILO ROLDÁN

Translations of Sentimental Lunary

feat. Leopoldo Lugones

moon
      sugar in a teacup
      of celestial light
whom feeds a passion

                        nothing lascivious
hypochondriac soaking biscuit
                  in the bilious mundane
chimeric mistress number

zero     (in these words
                              a cheese
spread from her category
                  smooth)

née foie gras 
                  in the shape of an
egg       hatches oviparous deity
            a plump goose among

her goslings who         likewise
are their own bread crumbs
      a-twinkle in
                        perpetual peck—

            this owl with eyes of stock
            in which a legume stews
lentil of an immense
pendulum spreading over rice

            hysterically morbid asparagus
uprooted
                  by the lymphatic misery
                  of a cough

            skewed bone
jumping rhomboid
                              lean leg of pork
                  offered as        penitence

through eons of exposure
                                          slides into
       chunks
                        of gelatine

to the maximum
                              weight in tapioca
      that one mule can shoulder
                  @ (called

      arroba) meaning
            with a holographic digestif
pearly refraction
      measures out   all on the table

      (plate of yellow snapper
                              shifts to green
ladle at rest
                  in a punch bowl of blue flash)

pearl earring in the lobe     of a deaf universe
      dissolves in vinegar
      diffuse in everything
and then as if put to a dare

      I caustic moon
                  to prove a point
(that I will spend this much)
                        drink my pearl

Camilo Roldán is a poet and translator living in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. From 2011 to 2013, he co-curated the Triptych Reading Series. He is currently editor-in-chief for Diez, a chapbook press. He is the author and co-author respectively of the chapbooks Amilkar U., Nadaísta in Translation (These Signals Press 2011) and ∆ [delta] (TPR Press 2013). A new chapbook, La Torre, is out on Well Greased Press. His work has most recently appeared in Lungfull!, Mandorla, The Poetry Project Newsletter, West Wind Review, Quaderna and Aufgabe.